A pixel array display system may modulate light from an illumination source as a function of input image data for each pixel to produce a display. It may be desirable to provide modulated light from the pixel array which is linearly polarized, for example, to enable a three-dimensional (3D) display system which alternates polarization directions between frames. Common methods of providing polarized modulated light from a pixel array may be undesirably inefficient from an optical throughput standpoint. Adding a polarizer to a projection lens discards half of the modulated light, which may add cost and complexity to an illumination source of the display system. Providing a polarized illumination source may require all optical elements to maintain the polarization state of the illumination source, which may add cost and complexity to the optical elements. Additional background information is given in Destain U.S. Pub. No. US 2011/0298842 A1, entitled “Sparse Source Array for Display Pixel Array Illumination with Rotated Far Field Plane.”